Books: Fable of Beasts & Men

"You have never been inside a film studio? ... It is really [the same
as a] palace of the 16th Century. There one sees what Shakespeare saw:
the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the
jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically
beautiful women . . . incompetent favorites . . . great men who are
suddenly disgraced . . . insane extravagances . . . unexpected
parsimony . . . enormous splendor, which is a sham . . . horrible...